Theos-Talk Archives (March 1995 Message tl00122)

Further info about Senate Bill S.,314

> Forwarded message from dorns@goliath.sunyocc.edu (Sue Dorn)

>From some librariophiles in New York City I submit the following
post, of particular interest to all librarians and libraries
involved in providing Internet services directly or indirectly.

         CAMPAIGN TO STOP THE US COMMUNICATIONS DECENCY ACT (S.
         314)

      PLEASE WIDELY REDISTRIBUTE THIS DOCUMENT WITH THIS BANNER
      INTACT DO NOT REDISTRIBUTE AFTER MAY 1, 1995 DO NOT
      REPRODUCE THIS ALERT IN NON-POLITICAL FORUMS Feb.  22, 1995

      Distributed by the Voters Telecommunications Watch
      (vtw@vtw.org)

In order to use the net more effectively, the following
organizations have joined forces on a single Congressional net
campaign to stop the Communications Decency Act, S.  314 (in
alphabetical order):

        the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU),
        the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT),
        the Center for Public Representation (CPR),
        the CyberQueer Lounge, an online resource for the gay
        community,
        the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF),
        the Electronic Frontier Foundation-Austin (EFF-Austin),
        (Note that EFF-Austin is not a chapter of the DC-based EFF)
        the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC),
        the Hands Off! the Net petition drive,
        the National Writers Union (UAW Local 1981 AFL-CIO), (NWU)
        the People for the American Way (PFAW),
        the Society for Electronic Access (SEA), and
        the Voters Telecommunications Watch (VTW)

These organizations are using the Voters Telecommunications Watch
(VTW) as a conduit for legislative feedback.  When you contact
Congress about the Communications Decency Act and send your
feedback to vtw@vtw.org, that information is being fed back to
all participating organizations.

If your organization would like to signon to this campaign and
receive legislative feedback, contact vtw@vtw.org.

INTRODUCTION
Dear Net Citizens:

Legislation has been introduced before the Senate which would
severely restrict your freedom of speech, halt the free flow of
information on the net, and require all telecommunications
carriers to censor your public and private communications.

The "Communications Decency Act of 1995" (S.  314), introduced in
early February by Senators Exon (D-NE) and Gorton (R-WA), would
place substantial criminal liability on telecommunications
carriers (including traditional telephone networks, Internet
service providers, commercial online services such as America
Online and Compuserve, and independent BBS's) whenever their
networks are used to transmit any material which is deemed
indecent or harassing.  In order to avoid these penalties,
carriers would be forced to restrict the activities of their
subscribers and censor all public and private communications.

We must act quickly to stop the progress of S.  314.  The bill
may soon be incorporated into Senate telecommunications reform
legislation, which is currently being drafted by the Senate
Commerce Committee.  The telecommunications reform bill may be
introduced as early as mid March, and is expected to be
considered on a fast track.  If S.  314 is included in this bill,
it will be extremely difficult to change or remove and could pass
quickly.

We are asking you to join us in urging key members of the Senate
to prevent S.  314 from being included in Senate
telecommunications reform measures and to hold open, public
hearings on the issue.

WHERE CAN I LEARN MORE ABOUT THE BILL?

The Voters Telecommunications Watch has set up a gopher page
where you can get a copy of the bill (including analyses by the
American Civil Liberties Union, the Center for Democracy and
Technology, the Electronic Messaging Association, and others).
Here's the URL:

        WWW URL: gopher://gopher.panix.com/11/vtw/exon
        Gopher command : gopher -p 1/vtw/exon gopher.panix.com

If you have difficulty getting to this gopher page, or if you
don't have access to Mosaic/gopher, drop a note to:

        vtw@vtw.org

WHERE WILL I LEARN ABOUT UPDATES TO THIS ALERT?

We will post updates to this alert in three places:

        -On the account vtw@panix.com (finger vtw@panix.com)
        -On Usenet (comp.org.eff.talk, comp.org.cpsr.talk, and
        alt.privacy)
        -Through our announcements mailing list,
        vtw-announce@vtw.org.

        To subscribe, simply send a message to listproc@vtw.org
        with the following in the message body:

                subscribe vtw-announce Firstname Lastname

Karen G. Schneider  Cybrarian/Internet Trainer
kgs@intac.com "Have Powerbook, Will Travel!"
Need a NJ provider?  Free referrals.
Blue Highways Internet Services http://www.intac.com/~kgs/